


Crossing Borders

by justlikeyouimagined



Series: Remnants [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: And angsty, Feelings, IT'S BEAUTIFUL, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), Post-fall fallout, Road Trips, Will runs away with Hannibal, because of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15786438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeyouimagined/pseuds/justlikeyouimagined
Summary: A couple small car scenes immediately following Remnants that I couldn't get out of my head. So now they exist. What the first couple of days might be like once Will leaves with Hannibal.References first work in series but I suspect you're clever enough to manage without reading it if you'd like.





	Crossing Borders

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks muchly to [HanniballisticMissile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HanniballisticMissile/pseuds/HanniballisticMissile) and [Niceven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silace/pseuds/Niceven) for the beta!

Memories are fickle things, their temperament seemingly out of his control. In the next few days, he will replay the moment over in his mind dozens - hundreds - of times, and still, he will remain incapable of forcing what happens on the porch into anything more than raw sensations. 

At first, it was the absolute stillness of afternoon; a silence so unnatural in its entirety, he is sure his mind must have shorted. Then, just as consuming as the quiet, there come the tiny moments. The pull of his cheek as it works into an small, empathetic smile - the tremor of it revealing its caution. The weight of his breath - full up of glass shards - scraping his throat on an exhale. The pressure of Hannibal’s dry palm against the overgrown stubble of his cheek. The tiniest dance of fingers dragging away, along his neck, against the pulsing skin. The swollen feeling of his chest, so long caved out with grief, seizing tight and near bursting.  

He leaves with nothing; had decided his next steps long before the porch door clattered against its frame. There is no need to linger, and so they don’t. Will doesn’t remember giving Hannibal his keys, but there he is, in the passenger seat, with Hannibal at the wheel. They are three hours out of town before he snaps back into himself, lets his visions align with reality. The missing time should concern him, should set aflame a familiar worry that something sickly is taking root in his mind. Instead, a heavy warmth settles over him, drunk in the knowledge that nothing matters now outside of this moment. 

He doesn’t realize his hand has reached out until their fingers have already intertwined over the gear shift.

In his periphery he notes the small smile play against Hannibal’s lips. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, forcibly searing the memory of right now - this feeling - into his mind forever. 

He sleeps.

They negotiate shifts driving without needing to speak, and cross state after state without more than pauses for gas, or food, or to switch vehicles. 

At some point, Will finds himself transfixed by the stubbornness of his watch’s persistent ticking off of time, his gaze turning angry as he dares the seconds to stop slipping by. When they don’t, he unclasps the band, slides down the window, and lets the watch fall over the lip of the glass and into the darkness. After nearly a year spent contemplating how something so seemingly harmless as a concept like time could hurt so much, Will doesn’t care anymore for the quantification of these moments.

His belly flips at the low sound of Hannibal’s reactive, appreciative chuckle.

Later, as they approach the border, Hannibal reaches into the glove compartment to retrieve two U.S passports. He hands them to Will, and in the short queue before the agent’s gate he looks down at two familiar faces matched against unfamiliar names. If he were being careful, he would memorize the information in front of him, but the idea doesn’t even occur to him. He is reckless in a way that he can only realize with Hannibal beside him.

For just a flash, he sees the inside of the border patrol booth painted in crimson, feels the slippery wetness on his tongue and between his fingers and dripping down his neck. But then they are through the gate, no more than ten words passing between them. Will notes, fleetingly, the disappointment that accompanies how easy their escape has been. Just as quickly as it comes on, he wills the images away, turns his gaze forward to the road ahead.  
  


\---  
  


Somewhere in Northern Ontario, they swap cars again, then again on the side of the endless flat planes of Manitoba. It is well into their second day of driving when he realizes they have yet to speak to each other. Once he notices the absence, the force of it steals his words. The heavy contentedness he feels in his chest a willing trade for language.

Ultimately though, he doesn’t know how to trust happiness any more than the man contentedly reading Bataille in the passenger seat. There is no world in which Will knows contentedness, he thinks to himself. Just as soon as he acknowledges how comfortable he feels driving them head-long into the jagged rockies in their borrowed Caravan, he cannot help but set into motion a manner to make things hurt again. His self-loathing is as automatic as breathing.

Early on the third morning, he pulls into the far end of an empty plaza parking lot. The warming amber glow of the sunrise is smoothing out over the lingering velvet of the night sky. 

“I thought you were dead.” he says at last, tongue like sandpaper in his mouth.

Hannibal marks his page, closing the book in his lap. A quiet sigh, tired. “Let’s not start off with lies.”

“Maybe I wish you had,” he stares out at the yellow lines on the pavement, not really seeing.

“Would it have that made things simpler for you?” 

Will takes a deep breath, trying to calm the frantic upbeat of his heart from hearing Hannibal’s voice again. His throat feels tight, so he closes his eyes against the swell of emotion that floods in. Another breathe, willing it to run its course.

“You left me,” he says simply. It is an accusation and a question and a confession of bone-deep hurt. 

“It was… inescapable.” Hannibal shifts in his seat, knees angling inwards. His eyes travel a smooth path up his body, but skip and falter before reaching his face. He reaches a hand out, but it falls short of making contact. A nervous tap - once, twice - on his thigh, before his hands still. 

Hannibal continues when Will doesn’t respond, softer, “I am not proud of my reaction that night.” Briefly, his gaze shifts away from Will entirely before he feels its focus once more.

“I convinced myself you were dead,” Will says again, more certain, realizing that somewhere in the months between sobering up and meeting him again, he’d really believed it. He turns to face Hannibal, looking at him in a way he hasn’t allowed himself since the porch. “It took me so long to convince myself that you were dead.”

“But I came back.”

“But you came back,” he repeats. It doesn’t stop the wetness from spreading across his lashes, spilling onto the soft landscape of his face.

This time, when he moves, Hannibal grazes his hand gently over the line of Will’s jaw, remembering the shape of the man in front of him. Will leans into Hannibal’s hand for a breath, eyes lidded.

“Neither of us are dead, Will.”

They are quiet for a long time.

The edges of Will’s lips twitch up in a pained smile, “This feels like a resurrection.” 

Hannibal’s thumb moves smoothly to trace the corner of his mouth, and his eyes spark, “A rebirth.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for indulging me. I'm [trikemily](https://trikemily.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. Come say hi.


End file.
